CollegeHumor: Jessie Richardson Contributionshttp://www.collegehumor.com/user/4062439
Funny Videos, Funny Pictures, Funny Links!/post/4062456http://www.collegehumor.com/post/4062456/poll-majority-of-web-users-are-liars
Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:38:43 -0400/post/4062456http://www.collegehumor.com/post/4062456/poll-majority-of-web-users-are-liars
Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500<p> </p><p>Washington DC- According to <span class="caps">USA</span> Today- Gallup Poll released Thursday, as many as 92 percent of web users admit that when typing the acronym &quot;<span class="caps">LOL</span>,&quot; they are not actually laughing out loud. </p><p>&quot;I&#039;m honestly not surprised by the results,&quot; says Professor of Sociology at Davidson University, Don Amburrough. &quot;Whenever I have to email homework assignments to my students, some of them write back, &#039;Thanks! <span class="caps">LOL</span>!&#039; I just don&#039;t see how they could find it <i>that </i>funny.&quot;<br />
</p><p>According to the poll, a mere 8 percent claim that they <i>do</i> laugh out loud when typing &quot;<span class="caps">LOL</span>,&quot; while 22 percent &quot;just crack a smile,&quot; and a whopping 70 percent have no physical reaction at all.</p><p>&quot;I use &#039;<span class="caps">LOL</span>&#039; a lot when I write my friends messages on <i>Facebook</i>. It&#039;s just polite, but it doesn&#039;t mean I&#039;m laughing,&quot; says Sandra Collins, a 24 year old film production assistant. She continues, &quot;You can&#039;t really communicate emotions when someone can&#039;t see your face or hear your voice, so I just type &#039;<span class="caps">LOL</span>&#039; to seem friendly.&quot; She pauses. &quot;That sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.&quot; <!-- readmore --><br />
</p><p>Representing the minority of &quot;<span class="caps">LOL</span>&quot; users who <i>do</i> laugh out loud when typing it, is Wayne Peterson, a Canadian message board moderator for <i>Viewline</i>, in Calgary, Alberta. Peterson claims that it was he who first coined the term twenty-five years ago in a teleconference chat room, and insists that the acronym&#039;s meaning hasn&#039;t changed for him.<br />
</p><p>&quot;We had ways of portraying amusement in chat rooms before &#039;<span class="caps">LOL</span>,&#039;&quot; says Peterson. &quot;We&#039;d write &#039;grin&#039; or &#039;laugh,&#039; and, of course, we&#039;d use the gamut of smiley face emoticons, but I felt that none of them really conveyed the fact that someone made you feel foolish by laughing out loud in a room all by yourself.&quot; He continues, &quot;Today, of course, we see many variations, and I&#039;m amazed daily whenever I see &#039;<span class="caps">LOL</span>&#039; appear in obscure places. The &#039;true&#039; use of &#039;<span class="caps">LOL</span>&#039; has been tainted; people use it in the same way that they&#039;d use &#039;grin&#039; or &#039;hahahaha.&#039; I guess this is [just] the evolution of words and language, but it makes me sad. &#039;<span class="caps">LOL</span>&#039; is starting to go out of style, and one day it will become extinct, just like Latin.&quot;<br />
</p><p>Online researcher, Jack Clemmens, of <i>Andrea Cotor Consulting</i>, shares Peterson&#039;s opinion about the recent decline in popularity of &#039;<span class="caps">LOL</span>&#039; and explains what might be in store for the future of internet lingo.<br />
</p><p>&quot;I think we&#039;re moving toward a trend in exclamation points,&quot; says Clemmens. &quot;While &#039;<span class="caps">LOL</span>&#039; is still much shorter than &#039;laughing out loud,&#039; it&#039;s getting to be too long by today&#039;s standards. People don&#039;t want to have to move their fingers over three different keys on the keyboard- it&#039;s just laborious and time-consuming. The exclamation point is only one character- it&#039;s quick, clear, and to the point.&quot;</p><p>Clemmens also believes that many of the founding fathers of English Literature would echo his sentiments if they were still alive. He adds, &quot;[William] Shakespeare once wrote that &#039;brevity is the soul of wit.&#039; I think that if he were around [today] and posted that in an internet chat room, he would use an exclamation point instead of &#039;<span class="caps">LOL</span>.&#039;&quot;</p>nonadultcomedy
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